Sunday, April 2, 2017

Uzay Bulut : Covering Up Armenian Genocide

Covering Up Armenian Genocide

"In all of these operations
children were part of the general population targeted for wholesale
destruction. In many instances they were also subjected to separate and
differential forms of mass murder." — Professor Vahakn Dadrian, in Children as Victims of Genocide: The Armenian Case.

These forms of murder included methods such as mass drowning, mass burning, sexual assaults, and mutilations.

"In Ankara province, near the village of Bash Ayash, two
rapist-killers -- a brigand, Deli Hasan, and a gendarme, Ibrahim --
raped twelve boys, aged 12-14, and subsequently killed them. Those who
did not die instantly were tortured to death while crying 'Mummy,
Mummy.'" — Professor Vahakn Dadrian, in Children as Victims of Genocide: The Armenian Case.

"A female survivor from Giresun relates how in Agn (Egin), Harput
province, some 500 Armenian orphans collected from all parts of that
province were poisoned through the arrangement of the local pharmacist
and physician." — Leslie A Davis, U.S. Consul at Harput.

More than 100 years after the genocide, Turkey still denies it
and Turkish history textbooks even blame the genocide on the Armenians
themselves.

When experts deny the Armenian genocide and even try to prevent
the U.S. government from officially recognizing it, they are killing the
victims all over again.

"As long as the genocide remains unrecognized, justice will not
be established. The curse of the genocide will not leave this land, and
Turkey will never see the light of day. This is not a prediction, but a
statement of fact." — Turkey's Human Rights Association, 2016.

U.S. President-Elect Donald J. Trump was recently called on to "guarantee" to Turkey that the Armenian genocide will not be properly acknowledged by the U.S. Congress, in a set of proposals regarding "U.S. Policy on Turkey".
"The United States can quietly guarantee Turkey that the Armenian
Genocide resolution in Congress will not pass. This has always been
critical in the relationship, and most Turks care deeply about the
issue," reads a part of the paper
issued by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and
authored by former U.S. ambassador to Ankara James F. Jeffrey and
Turkish scholar Dr. Soner Cagaptay.

In the meantime, an Armenian protestant church in the Turkish city of
Elazig (historic Kharpert/Harput) has been turned into a parking lot,
the Dicle News Agency (DIHA) reported.
The walls of the church, which served as a place of worship for the
Armenian and Assyrian communities alike, is now loaded with advertising
boards, installed by the managers of the parking lot. Before that, the
church was used as a flour plant, a marketplace and a livestock market.
The city of Elazig is located in the Armenian highland of eastern Turkey.
Professor Benjamin Lieberman in his book, Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe:

"Elazig is a small city in Eastern Turkey of several
hundred thousand inhabitants, situated near a series of lakes created by
a dam on the Euphrates River. Today its residents are mostly Turks and
Kurds, but as late as the spring of 1915 it was also very much an
Armenian town. In 1915, Armenians called it Kharpert while Turks
referred to it as Harput. It had been an Armenian center for many
centuries."[1]

The historic town and citadel of Harput (also called Harpoot,
Karpoot, and Kharperd) means "rock fortress" in Armenian. After the
founding of the Turkish republic in 1923, the government changed the
city's name to "Elazig".
According to professor Richard Hovannisian, the Armenian genocide was
the "physical elimination of the Armenian people and most of the
evidence of their ever having lived on the great highland called the
Armenian Plateau, to which the perpetrator side soon assigned the new
name of Eastern Anatolia".[2]
No matter how much the Turkish government is trying to erase the
Armenian heritage in Harput and the rest of Turkey, the Armenian roots
of the region are undeniable. As a medieval town, Harput seems to have
developed under the Byzantine rule (10th and 11th
centuries – 938 onwards). According to the author T.A. Sinclair, "The
Byzantines presumably valued the site for the powerful castle rock, but
once a military base became established here a civilian population
started to form. No doubt this population, ethnically Syrian and
Armenian, came in part from the city of Arsamosata [a city in the
Armenian Kingdom near the Euphrates] further east, which started to give
way to Harput, as well as from nearby villages."[3]
The Ottomans captured the region in 1515. Under the Ottoman administrative system, the province was called Mamuretul-aziz.
But the Armenian presence in the city remained strong despite all of
the massacres and pressures to which they were subject, such as forced
conversions to Islam.According
to another author, George Aghjayan: "On the eve of the genocide... The
figures as presented indicate that the Armenian population of Kharpert
remained relatively static for almost a century, never deviating much
from approximately 40,000."
It was in 1915 that Armenians were exposed to what they often call
"Medz Yeghern" or "the Great Disaster" when the leaders of the Turkish
government set in motion a plan to expel and massacre them.
The plan resulted in the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians. Today, most historians call this event a genocide–a premeditated and systematic campaign to exterminate an entire people.

Professor Vahakn Dadrian, an expert on the Armenian Genocide, wrote in his article, "Children as Victims of Genocide: The Armenian Case":

"In the provinces of Sivas, Harput, Trabzon, Erzurum,
Diyarbekir, as well as the independent sanjaks of Urfa and Maras the
genocide was earned out in part through deportations and in part through
massacres... In all of these operations children were part of the
general population targeted for wholesale destruction. In many instances
they were also subjected to separate and differential forms of mass
murder."[4]

These forms of murder included methods such as mass drowning, mass burning, sexual assaults, and mutilations.

"[O]rphanages in which Armenian children were gathered
after the liquidation of their families served as transit camps for
subsequent annihilation through drowning."

U.S. Consul at Harput, Leslie A Davis, described a horrendous scene
of butchering around Lake Goeljuk [Golcuk/Hazar Lake] near Harput:

"In the mass burning of Armenian orphans, plain sadistic
fiendishness was mostly at work. After eliminating the rest of the
Armenian population, these remnants had become a nuisance to the
perpetrators. In several regards it was deemed most economical to end
their misery by torching them en masse. In four provinces, Diyarbakir,
Harput, Bitlis, and Aleppo, this method was applied with special
ferocity."

After describing the gaping bayonet wounds on most of the naked
bodies, usually in the abdomen or chest, sometimes in the throat with
the victims showing "signs of barbarous mutilation," Consul Davis
declared:

"That which took place around beautiful Lake Goeljuk in
the summer of 1915 is almost inconceivable. Thousands and thousands of
Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless women and children, were
butchered on its shores and barbarously mutilated."

Mass poisoning and rapes of children were also widespread.

"An Armenian boy, adopted by a Turkish family in Mezre,
Harput province, related a graphic description of rapes committed
regularly by a Turkish man with the full knowledge of his wife in that
household. The other modality involves rape before murder. In Ankara
province, near the village of Bash Ayash, two rapist-killers — a
brigand, Deli Hasan, and a gendarme, Ibrahim — raped twelve boys, aged
12-14, and subsequently killed them. Those who did not die instantly
were tortured to death while crying 'Mummy, Mummy'.
"A female survivor from Giresun relates how in Agn (Egin), Harput
province, some 500 Armenian orphans collected from all parts of that
province were poisoned through the arrangement of the local pharmacist
and physician."

According to the author Deirdre Holding, Davis sent a letter to his
boss, the American ambassador at Constantinople, on 24 July 1915. It
reads in part,

"I do not believe that there has ever been a massacre in
the history of the world so general and thorough as that which is now
being perpetrated in this region, or that a more fiendish, diabolical
scheme has ever been conceived in the mind of man."[5]

More than 100 years after the genocide, Turkey still denies it, and Turkish history textbooks even blame the genocide on the Armenians themselves.
Turkey's persistent denial is a known fact but much of the world has
also failed to recognize the genocide and sufficiently support the
survivors. Today, similar crimes are committed by other criminal
governments or organizations such as the Islamic State (ISIS), AL-Qaeda
and Boko Haram.
When experts such as Amb. James F. Jeffrey and Soner Cagaptay deny
the Armenian genocide and even try to prevent the U.S. government from
officially recognizing it, they are not only killing the victims all
over again but are also preventing Turks from learning historical truths
that they need to learn in order to take the necessary steps to
democratize their country.
However, there are also a few very courageous voices in Turkey who
are trying to challenge the denial perpetrated by the government and
much of the public. Turkey's Human Rights Association (IHD), for
example, declared in a statement last year:

"Genocide denial perpetuates genocide. Denial is the
exculpation of the perpetrator and the criminalization of the victim.
From course books to special publications, from newspapers to television
programs, Armenians have been represented as those who deserve
genocide. Since the foundation of the Republic, the Armenians of Turkey
have been living to this day in a society that remains hostile to them
and in close quarters with the grandchildren of perpetrators who think
exactly the way their predecessors did.
"As long as the genocide remains unrecognized, justice will not be
established. The curse of the genocide will not leave this land, and
Turkey will never see the light of day. This is not a prediction, but a
statement of fact."

Uzay Bulut, a journalist born and raised a Muslim in Turkey, is currently based in Washington D.C.[1]Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe, by Benjamin Lieberman. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013.[2]The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies, by Richard G. Hovannisian, Transaction Publishers, 2007.[3]Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey, Volume III: 3 Kindle Edition, by T.A. Sinclair. Pindar Press, 2014.[4]
"Children as victims of genocide: the Armenian case", by Vahakn N.
Dadrian. Paper presented at the international Association of Genocide
Scholars, Galway, Ireland, June 6-10, 2003.[5]Armenia: with Nagorno Karabagh, by Deirdre Holding. Bradt Travel Guides, 2014.

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